JONATHAN ROSS ended his last Friday night on the BBC with a wobbling lip, glistening eyes and a crack in the voice.

As a radio producer, I’ve been cursing Ross for the past 18 months. You wouldn’t believe how much Sachsgate increased the workload of anyone let near a radio studio. But having completed umpteen training courses, online questionnaires and filled in hundreds of forms I am now confident I am completely incapable of enraging a Daily Mail reader.

While many are saying “good widdance”, I will miss him. For all Ross’s letching, innuendo and ridiculously inflated salary, he does have a fleetness of thought that is increasingly rare in broadcasting. It will be interesting to see if ITV will reap the ratings.

He certainly went out with a flourish, extracting more from David Beckham on the failure of England’s World Cup campaign than any sports journalist has managed. It was just a shame that the following exchange, captured in the blog of Guardian Media writer Boyd Hilton who attended the recording, did not make the final edit: “There was a sweetly unexpected moment during the Mickey Rourke interview when the grizzled Hollywood star revealed he’d like to make a film about the gay rugby player Gareth Thomas, taking the lead role himself. It turned out that Thomas was part of Rourke’s entourage in the studio audience – so Ross invited him to the stage for an unlikely show of bonding. It felt like a genuine impromptu moment.”

Leaving aside the unlikely casting of Rourke – Gareth Thomas deserves a more aesthetically pleasing celluloid alter ego– Alfie: The Movie is a great idea. As with Ross himself, let’s hope it’s a case of watch this space.